A pH-controlled synthetic route to violet, green, and orange fluorescent carbon dots for multicolor light-emitting diodes

As a relatively new type of fluorescent carbon-based nanomaterials, multicolor carbon dots (MCDs) have attracted much attention because of their excellent biocompatibility, tunable photoluminescence (PL), high quantum yield, and unique electronic and physicochemical properties. The multicolor emission characteristics of carbon dots (CDs) obviously depend on the carbon source precursor, reaction conditions, and reaction environment, which directly or indirectly determines the multicolor emission characteristics of CDs. Therefore, this review is the first systematic classification and summary of multiple regulation methods of synthetic MCDs and reviews the recent research progress in the synthesis of MCDs from a variety of precursor materials such as aromatic molecules, small organic molecules, and natural biomass, focusing on how different regulation methods produce corresponding MCDs. This review also introduces the innovative applications of MCDs in the fields of biological imaging, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), sensing, and anti-counterfeiting due to their excellent PL properties. It is hoped that by selecting appropriate adjustment methods, this review can inspire and guide the future research on the design of tailored MCDs, and provide corresponding help for the development of multifunctional MCDs.

The Emerging Development of Multicolor Carbon Dots.

Due to better penetrating abilities of near-infrared (NIR) light and lower autofluorescence of biological tissue at NIR region, the combination of NIR fluorescent imaging with therapeutic abilities has gradually emerged as a promising strategy for cancer therapy. Herein, tumor microenvironment (TME) sensitive nanocarriers based on doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX), NIR emitting carbon dots (C-dots), hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles (HMSN) and anionic polymer citraconic anhydride-modified polylysine (PLL(cit)) are fabricated for imaging guided drug delivery. The NIR emitting C-dots were conjugated onto the surface of HMSN via disulfide bonds which can be reduced by intracellular glutathione (GSH) and result in the release of DOX into cells. And then the PLL(cit) was grafted on the surface of the nanocarriers to endow the nanocarriers with charge convertible property in mildly acidic TME (pH = 6.50) which results in prolonged blood circulation time and enhanced cellular internalization. The in vitro and in vivo experiments confirmed that the dual pH/GSH responsive features of nanocarriers can eliminate the tumor tissues effectively and elicit much slighter side effects. Moreover, since the fluorescence of C-dots can be recovered after the reduction of disulfide bonds and selectively accumulation of nanocarriers around tumor tissue, the DOX@HMSN-SS-C-dots-PLL(cit) can be served as a promising NIR fluorescence probe for targeted imaging of tumor tissue. As a kind of multifunctional nanocarrier with NIR fluorescent imaging and therapeutic functions, the theranostic nanocarriers hold great potential for tumor therapy and in vivo imaging of tumor tissue.

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Dual-stimuli responsive near-infrared emissive carbon dots/hollow mesoporous silica-based integrated theranostics platform for real-time visualized drug delivery

Sulfuric-acid-mediated synthesis strategy for multi-colour aggregation-induced emission fluorescent carbon dots: Application in anti-counterfeiting, information encryption, and rapid cytoplasmic imaging

Carbon dots (CDs) that simultaneously exhibit full-color and wide-range lifetime-tunable room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) are of particular interest for potential applications in encryption and information security. However, achieving such CDs remains a great challenge thus far. This work reports on the development of a straightforward host–guest approach, where a metal–organic framework (MOF) host acts as an RTP activator of fluorescent CDs, with the RTP color dependent on the fluorescent component. The developed CDs@MOF composites exhibited RTP with a tunable emission wavelength from blue (478 nm) to red (631 nm), while the lifetime was tunable from 85.67 to 1064.21 ms. As far as is known, this is the report of CD-based RTP materials with simultaneous full-color and wide-range lifetime-tunable properties for the first time. In comparison to conventional 3D coding applications of CDs, the wide-range lifetime-tunable property allows for the creation of an additional dimension in encryption. Thus, the developed RTP CDs@MOF composites have potential as writable security inks for advanced 4D coding applications. This study paves a path for development of RTP CD-based nanomaterials with multiple controllable factors to meet the requirements of advanced applications. 

Metal–Organic Framework-Activated Full-Color Room-Temperature Phosphorescent Carbon Dots with a Wide Range of Tunable Lifetimes for 4D Coding Applications

Carbon dots (CDs), as a new kind of carbon-based luminescent nanomaterials, have drawn widespread attention in the fields of fluorescence sensing, optoelectronic devices, and biological imaging. This work uses citric acid (CA) and Nile Blue A (NBA) as precursors. By simply changing the solvent in the reaction, their bandgaps were systematically controlled, thereby successfully obtaining bright blue, yellow and red fluorescence emission CDs (B-, Y- and RCDs). The higher quantum yield (QY) of B-, Y- and RCDs are 64%, 57% and 51%, respectively. The selected precursors and different solvents are the key to the formation of three emission CDs. Detailed characterization and density functional theory (DFT) calculations further indicate that the difference in emission color of CDs is due to the size of the sp2 conjugate domain. In addition, we used multicolor CDs as fluorescent probes to investigate their performance in detection. Among them, BCDs and YCDs can detect Sudan Red I with high selectivity and sensitivity. In the concentration range of 0 to 80 µM, the detection limits are 56 and 41 nM, respectively. Multicolor emitting phosphors and fluorescent films are also obtained by mixing CDs with other matrices. Using Ultraviolet (UV) chip as the excitation source and combining with multicolor fluorescent film and a certain proportion of B-, Y-, and RCDs/epoxy resin composites, bright monochromatic light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and white LED (WLED) with high color rendering index (CRI) were prepared. The above results indicate that the multicolor CDs prepared by us have great application potential in the fields of food safety control and optical devices.

Jing Xu

Papers

Solvent-controlled synthesis strategy of multicolor emission carbon dots and its applications in sensing and light-emitting devices